Jealousy is an ugly monster. Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who is jealous? Have you ever been jealous?

James 3:14-16 says,

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

Jealousy sparks the most vile actions and reactions. I’ve heard people say “I can tell that they love me so much because when I talk to someone else they get so jealous”. Or “I must be doing something right because they are so jealous of me”. Trust me, jealousy is not a form of love. It is not flattering in any way. And here is the real truth – it has nothing to do with you but everything to do with them. Jealousy is actually the result of low self-esteem and/or insecurities. It results in toxic relationships. It involves that sense of entitlement to control. Jealousy can make people do some crazy things. Jealousy is not an emotion that should be embraced as a sign that strong love exists. In fact, it’s the opposite; jealousy comes from a perspective of self-preservation, not love towards others.  There is also Envy – do not confuse jealousy with envy. Envy happens when you want something that someone else is experiencing or you get a wishful feeling inside, like you want what they have. But this feeling does not necessarily lead to jealousy, you see; you can be envious of somebody’s situation. Jealousy says “I want what you have, and until I have it, you shouldn’t have it either.” Is there jealousy in your relationship? If so, RUN!!!!!

It started with compliments then, subtle possession then, total control. Living with a jealous narcissist is pure HELL!!!!! Once I realized the chains that held me I started to do a little research, because I didn’t want to accept that this was a normal relationship. I was tired of making excuses for this behaviour. Why was this happening? What did I do to attract this in my life. Simply walking away was not working because they would not let me go. I  began researching personality disorders based on the actions and statements made by this person who claimed to love me more than life it itself. At first I thought is was bi-polar disorder. It fit the actions, the behaviour, the personality and even the relationship. The statistics said that 75 percent of men go undiagnosed with this disorder, I found that disturbing. The more I dug the more I was convinced this was the case because the events in my life were straight out of a lifetime movie. I began to understand why people snap and do crazy things. There are several disorders that had similar symptoms/traits, so without an actual diagnosis there was no way of knowing what I was dealing with. Then I stumbled on an article on Narcissistic Behaviour. The heavens opened up, light shined down and the angels sang!!!!!! There it was in black and white, the ugly truth. I was living with a NARCISSIST.

Now, how the hell do I get away???? I know, I know, just walk away, right? WRONG. You can’t just walk away because you see , to them, you are their possession. They don’ just accept the fact that you don’t want to be with them anymore so they develop a story in their mind that you must have someone else and that triggers the jealousy and then the control.

Narcissistic behavior can be labeled as borderline, sociopathic, narcissistic, or just intolerable, but it all derives from one fundamental driving force: narcissists can’t tolerate criticism, especially public criticism. And divorcing them is about the most direct and public criticism you can make. You’ll know you’re there when your soon-to-be ex spouse begins a campaign of destruction against you. And if you don’t know how to respond and deal with it, it can take a terrible toll. They are very skillful in deflecting guilt and craziness. Mine began a campaign against me that affected many relationships in my life. And you know I struggled with that because I was still trying to get past the caring what others thought of me stage in my life. I wanted to call every single person we knew as a couple to try to defend myself but, I realized that only made me look guilty. I lost people who I thought were friends. Disordered people aren’t just hurtful. They also spin our reality to make theirs less painful. They project their problems onto us, and blame us for what they do. After a while it becomes hard to distinguish what is real from what is being projected and what is being distorted. We begin to doubt our reality and question whether we’re the crazy ones. What’s more, disordered people hide their problems very effectively, concealing their disease from most people, causing us further confusion. This was my reality.

I tried to break free. I tried to get the local authorities involved because it was THAT serious. There were serious threats made and I believed them. I did get a Judge to agree to a protection order. BUT the judicial system is not set up to protect victims. It is set up to protect the predators. He was so good at what he did that in the end no one in the system believed me. I was determined that I was not going to be a victim. I was determined that I was going to break free from this stronghold and live my life in freedom. I pressed on. I took precautions to protect myself and was ready to defend myself at all costs. After a long series of very scary events and my persistence he finally lost interest and moved on. THANK GOD! I know there are a lot of situations like mine that do not end well. And I understand why. I am very grateful mine finally ended and I am living. Seriously, I am alive. I have to be honest though, I still look over my shoulder, not because I am scared but because I am cautious. I still make sure I know where and what he is doing. Not because I care but because I will not be taken by surprise, I WILL NOT BE A VICTIM!!!!!

If you think you are in a Narcissistic relationship, please get help. You can’t do it on your own. Surround yourself with a support system because you will need it. If you need someone to talk to – please reach out to me. Hugs and kisses!!!

 

 

As I reflect on the past I am bombarded with many questions and emotions. Where did I come from? Who are my people? and Where do I belong?

Adoption and separation from family leaves an emptiness you can’t explain and if you have been there then you will understand. It doesn’t define who I am but it does have an emotional effect.  Most families have parents and grandparents and they know where they came from. Knowing your family history is very common for some. How important is this in your life? Does it matter who your people are?

My son recently did the DNA testing on Ancestry just for fun to see what his heritage is because like me his father was absent from his life. Can I tell you it is pretty exciting to find out where you come from? Some people say “We all have ancestors that came over on the boat at some point in time”. Yes this is true but to actually trace your ancestors down to specific people who you can read about and “get to know” if you will, is pretty interesting to me. So my kids gave me the test for Christmas. I have been tracing my people on Ancestry. I have surprisingly found relatives that I have spoken to. Relatives that are from the people that abandoned us years ago. I am surprised at how emotional it has been. Finding out what your Heritage is provides a completion of sorts. Throughout my life people have asked me what my Heritage was and I have only guessed from bits and pieces of information about my family. But now I know and it’s pretty exciting.

People make decisions that affect generations. Think about that. The decisions you make will affect your people for generations. I want the abandonment to stop with me. I want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great great and so on and so on to know that they come from a long line of strong women that love fiercely and take their responsibility of raising their families seriously. I want to be like Esther. My past does not define me. My actions do. I can not be responsible for other family members actions but I can be responsible for my own. So, does where I came from matter? It depends on how far back you want to go. Me – I am a child of God. That’s what really matters. God created me for a purpose and it is my responsibility to find that purpose. My journey has been a rocky one and my lessons have been many.

I was 11 when I lost my great-grandmother on my mother’s side but I do remember her. I remember she loved to cook for her family. There was always food in the kitchen and I remember her always smiling. She loved her family fiercely. I wish that I had more time with her to learn more about where her passion came from. But I do know that part of her lives in me because I have that same passion and I have passed it on to my children and grandchildren. Oh and I do still have lots of family in my life that I love dearly and I love the time we spend together making memories of our own. I have not been completely abandoned. I don’t want to give the impression that my life is lonely and sad. I have so much to be thankful for and so many people in my life that I love and they love me. I am just searching for my purpose in this journey we call life.

I had children early in life and for that time my purpose was to raise them. To be the best mother I could be, to love them and to teach them how to be successful adults. They are now grown and raising or starting to raise families of their own. I was blessed with great kids – not perfect – but great kids. They are the pride and joy of my life. If I never do anything else in life, I have been successful as a mother. It was a struggle at times and I failed many times but we made it through and we are all alive! LOL

Great faith often emerges out of desperation and anguish, and I believe people who perform brave deeds always battle fear and inadequacy. The hand of God is always at work in our lives. Just as He used the circumstances in Esther’s life, He can also use the decisions and actions in our lives to work out His divine plans and purposes for us. He takes our greatest disappointments and tragedies and turns them around for good. So when we feel that we can’t go on, we must believe that there are good things to come. So we keep pushing forward toward the prize. Every day I tell myself “Keep moving forward” “You’re going to make it”. And I do believe this!

There are times in our lives where we make the best decision we can with the circumstances given to us and we pray that we are doing the right thing. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it does not.  I think often times we don’t realize the effect those decisions are having on the people around us. I can’t dwell on all the wrong decisions I’ve made in my life but I can ask what did I learn from those decisions, and how can I make better ones in the future.

Well Christmas is over and we are about to begin the New Year. I don’t know about you but the Holidays usually bring a little bit of the blues and guilt. It is a time that we reflect on the past year and try to analyze what it is in our lives that we should do differently the coming year. It’s like turning over a new leaf or a new chapter in life if you will. Most people, myself included think about family members that are gone and lost relationships of old.

Holidays of the past few years (since the passing of Dad/Step Father) have been very different to say the least. First of all, missing the Patriarch of the family is hard no matter the circumstances of  the family makeup and/or relationships, whether they be good or bad. He basically forced us all to come together as one regardless of  our feelings towards each other and for a least one day we were together as a group and we pretended to like each other.  Is this typical for most families? Is this normal? Do families really love each other all the time or just once or twice a year? Do we really accept each other despite all our flaws and differences? I will tell you this, I do believe that this starts with the head and trickles down to rest of the body. The fact that we gathered together was a reflection of our respect for him as the head of our family. So now that our head is gone who is our leader and where should our respect be directed?

Ephesians 6:2-3 says

Hey Y’all – it’s been a while since my last post. Life has been super busy and I finally found some time this week to sit down and meditate on my next post. So here goes…….

For years I learned to make excuses for bad behavior from people in my life. I know everyone has that one family member (or two or three) that we don’t particularly enjoy being around but…. we are obligated to invite them to all family functions because well…. they are family. Right??? Ummm no not necessarily. I came to realize that there are no excuses for bad behavior. They are grown adults who make a conscious decision to behave the way they do and they make a choice to treat people the way they do. I am not talking about personality conflicts. I do realize we don’t ALL get along ALL of the time. I am talking about that toxic person who is always critical, always the victim and always thinks they are better than you. The ones that use you for their own gain offering nothing in return except to talk about you behind your back. Well I am here to tell you – we all put our pants on the same way. And if you have never walked a mile in my shoes don’t judge the way I dance through life.

I had an aha moment one day, and that was, that I can choose to surround myself with the people I love and who love and support me for the person I am in spite of all my flaws. We celebrate life and love together. It is ok to disagree with the way I live and it is ok for me to disagree with your choices and the way you live.  Because we are not all the same and we all have different journeys. You see, I found myself  judging them because I didn’t like the  way they made me feel. I fell into that negative trap, always complaining about their behaviour. Oh dear lord!!! I have become like them!!!! I have become the very thing I hate! Uh-uh I ain’t doin it! I CHOOSE to get away from the negative people and the negative behaviour. Yes, I have walked away from the poison. And it is ok. It is ok to walk away from relationships that are not healthy. Forgive them and move on. Without forgiveness there is bitterness and I do not want to be a bitter angry person. I forgive for my peace of mind. What they do with their anger and jealousy is up to them. It is none of my business.

The Bible says we are put here on this Earth to enjoy the things God has provided for us. So I choose to enjoy the blessings God has placed in my life. I have friends (true friends – not people who just claim to be my friend) that think I am funny, smart, caring, generous, hard-headed, stubborn and sometimes a little bossy. (I choose to call it Good Management Skills – LOL) But guess what!!!!!????? They love me for who I am. They don’t always agree with me but they don’t have to. It’s ok to have different opinions and still support and love each other. Take my children for example. Do you think they have always agreed with every decision I made when they were growing up? Of course not. Do you think as adults they now agree with everything I do? Of course they do!!! HA Just kidding!!! Of course they don’t. But one thing I can say for sure is that they love me unconditionally and they support me in everything I do. And that goes for me as well. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE my kids with everything that I am. They are a part of me and I will always always always support them in everything they do, even if I don’t think it is the best thing for them. Because it is their journey and they have to live it. And then there are the Grands. Just when you think your heart could not love any deeper, grandkids come along. I would absolutely lay down my life and give my last breath for these precious gifts in my life. So naturally I want to spend as much time with all of them as I possibly can. And my man. I love him fiercely. He is a true gentleman to the core and truly gets me and he loves and accepts me for who I am. I am so grateful for him every day.  He is my best friend. And let’s not forget my biggest fan – my Mom. She has been through so much heartache and hurt in her life and still just loves people. She is a very forgiving person and I enjoy our time together.  I could go on and on but it would take me forever to list everyone that I celebrate life with. My cup runneth over with Blessings.

Celebrate living. Take the time to make that phone call because one day you will want to and they won’t be on the other end to answer. Use the good china everyday because everyday is a special occasion. Get up in the morning and put on that red lipstick, walk around the house in your high heels. I learned this from my grands. Since they could walk they would go into my dressing room and put on my lip gloss and my high heels and walk around the house. In fact they still do this twelve years later. This makes my heart happy. Do what makes you feel good and who cares about what others think. Buy the unpractical sports car. Go on that trip you always wanted to take. Buy that little red dress and wear it to the grocery store. Drink expensive wine at least once and don’t feel bad about it. Buy the biggest zirconium you can find and wear it as if it were the Hope Diamond. Do what makes you happy. Life is short Y’all! Celebrate EVERY DAY!!!!!!

When my father, who was supposed to be my protector, walked out of my life and left me to be raised  by a man who did not have my heart, without realizing it, I began my journey to independence. There were unspeakable  things happening to me as a child that no one knew about. Things that no child should ever have to experience. These things were being done by adults who were left in charge over me. People who should have been trustworthy. People who must have gone through horrible things as a child to make them do the things they did. I will never understand the mindset of someone who deliberately hurts an innocent child. Nevertheless I feel sure that God brings justice to those individuals.

In case you are wondering, there were people in my life who loved me very much and would have done everything in their power to save me from the hell I lived in if they only knew what was happening. But they didn’t. I didn’t know how to tell them. In fact I was threatened with death if I ever told anyone. I am just thankful I survived it. When we moved to Georgia we moved away from the evilness that consumed our daily lives but we still lived with the abuse from my step father. No wonder I had trouble with relationships, right? The first time there was conflict I cowered in the corner with fear. I didn’t know how to resolve it, I didn’t know how to communicate, I was afraid to express my feelings because it was never allowed. In fact to this day I hate conflict. I will face it head on when it is necessary but I do not go looking for it.

I went through very extensive counseling after my second divorce because I just needed to break the cycle. I needed to find peace, I needed to learn to be confident in who I was. I needed to learn to use my voice, to stand up for myself. I am doing ok with that. I do still avoid conflict if possible. Just because I don’t like to argue. I feel like it is wasted energy. I have done enough of it in my lifetime that I would like to avoid it all together. I don’t understand when people say (after seeing two people have a knock down drag out fight) ” boy if me and my wife argued like that, we would still be married”. Does fighting make your relationship stronger? I did not find that to be true. Especially when people fight dirty. People say things in anger that can’t be taken back and their words do damage that can’t be fixed. How does that make your bond stronger? How does that make you love that person more? Am I missing something here? I have always said, no matter how much you think you know someone, no matter how much you love them, no matter how long you have lived with them, you never really know what goes on in another persons head. So how do you truly trust people? Do you ever truly trust people? For me, it has been very, very difficult.

There have been very few people in my life who have not disappointed me. People in positions that warranted trust, abused their authority in ways you can’t even imagine. Relatives, friends, bosses, boyfriends, husbands even pastors. Well I should say one pastor in particular. All of these people had one thing in common – they were charmers. They pull you in with their compliments and try to gain your trust, all the time knowing they have an agenda. To use you, to break you, to get what they want from you and then move on to the next victim. Sorry if I sound cynical but this is the ugly truth of my life. Some of them are gone and never to be heard from again and I wouldn’t know them if I ran into them on the street but they left a lasting mark on my journey.

After each act of betrayal I became stronger and stronger because I survived. I found strength in moving on. I am not sure why I kept putting myself out there, I guess I just kept searching for unconditional love. The Bible talks about it, so I knew it had to exist somewhere. I wanted that “I adore you, you are the most important thing in my life” kind of love. Oh, I had people tell me that, but then their actions said a totally different thing. AHHHHHHH there it is. The problem is I was looking for it from PEOPLE. What I didn’t realize is, God loves me unconditionally, He adores me, He thinks I am the most important thing in His life. That is the most important relationship, the most important love. It was there all along I just had to find it. My strength came from Him, my ability to move on came from Him. He told me that I could trust again but I had to trust Him first. He used all of the betrayal and the pain to bring me to Him. You see I even had a hard time trusting God because, well, look what happened to me. How could I trust Him. I had to do some pretty deep soul-searching to really get to a place where I realized that what happened to me as a child was beyond my control. But when I became an adult I kept making bad choices that kept putting me in positions of betrayal because I did not speak up for myself. In my subconscious I did not think I was worthy of respect and love. In my head I was trying to demand it.

I have learned so many lessons through God’s pruning process of my life, but I think one of the most important ones is learning to trust. How can you go through life without people you trust? Sometimes you can’t over think things. Sometimes you have to just jump in with both feet and TRUST that God will be with you throught it all. He has been for me.

 

Growing up without that father daughter bonding, daddy’s girl, my daddy – my hero way of life made for zero self-worth. I never received that total acceptance kind of love from the man in my life. Instead it was filled with fear, doubt and ridicule. I think about the relationship with my kids and my grandkids and how they are comfortable just climbing up in my lap or sitting beside me without hesitation and I think “this is how it should be – this is love”. I don’t remember ever being able to do that. I remember thinking if I just stay away then I am safe.

I know now that this man loved me but he lacked self-worth himself so he behaved badly to compensate. As a teenager, a friend of the family convinced us that I should enter a beauty contest. I thought “oh my, I’m not sure I can do that. I can’t get up there in front of all those people to be gawked at”. But I did it and to my surprise I won. So I entered another one and another one. I liked winning – it made me feel good about myself. It made me think “maybe I do have value”. I entered a lot of pageants and I won a lot but not all. When I didn’t win dad would go right up to the judges and ask why. He would say “are you blind? she is the prettiest one here”. WHAAAAAAT???? He thought I was pretty? He never told me that growing up. He never made me feel that way. In fact it was quite the opposite. So I began to find self worth in my appearance. I began to notice that boys were looking at me and I began to feel pretty (as every girl should). BUT that is not all there is to self worth. I needed to find value in me, not my looks. This is a lesson I was still learning well into my adulthood. Finding value.

I remember being very artistic when I was in school. I loved art. I loved being creative. I have always heard that if you are ambidextrous you use both sides of your brain and are very artistic. In fact some very famous people like  Michelangelo, Einstein, Tesla, Leonardo da Vinci, and Truman were all ambidextrous. I was left handed as a child and dad was just not going to have that (for reasons I do not know) so he forced me to use my right hand. I would sit down to eat and automatically use my left hand and he would correct me. So I began to use my right. I learned to write with my right but could also use my left. As I became older I began to use both hands when applying makeup (notice how most women use only one hand for applying mascara – crossing over), I also began to draw and paint with both hands and was equally comfortable with both. But strangely I can only brush my teeth with my left hand. It’s weird I know. But anyway I have him to thank for that. He did me a favor and didn’t even know it. I became very interested in art in high school. I loved art class. I couldn’t wait to get there everyday to paint. It relaxed me. There was a calmness to it. But that didn’t last very long because that’s when I became pregnant, got married and quit school.

Fast forward to being pregnant with my second child (as you know I was divorced and had a toddler), I was living back at home. I just found out that my biological father had passed away and I went into a sadness that I can’t explain and that I never really talked about. I decided that I wanted to pursue art again. So I took an art class and began to paint. Again, it calmed me. I was at peace behind that paint brush. But then my second child was born and there was not time for painting. Life happened.

After I had my third child I was working from home and began dabbling in arts and crafts again. I painted a few murals and I did paintings as gifts for friends. Dad said you should really do this for a living. I thought boy wouldn’t that be great! But I know that phrase “starving artist” is not just an expression. It is very hard to make a living as an artist. So I moved on. I did however pick up a different expression of art. I began to decorate homes. I had an eye for balance and beauty. I was in my element yet again. I loved it. I had no formal training just a natural talent for it. My brain would explode with ideas and I could not wait to help clients transform their homes. I did this for years until I went through my second divorce. I needed a change so I entered the corporate world. It was good to me for about 25 years but I became restless. I would always jump at the chance to help friends and family decorate their homes.  And after my third divorce I decided to pick up a paint brush again and it felt great! I believe God gave me this talent and I believe God ordained the act of changing me from a lefty to a righty.

No matter where life has taken me He always brings me back to my passion. So right now in this moment of my life I decided to take a minute to breathe and to pray and to fast and to search God for my purpose in this thing we call life. My children are grown and have growing families. I absolutely LOVE being a grandmother and I want a house full of them. I want to leave a legacy of love and kindness. I want to teach them to love themselves and to find value in themselves. I want them to know I love them every minute of every day. I want to give them what I did not have. I want them to find their passion in life.

The lesson here is I had value all along because I belong to God. No matter what your circumstances are or where your place in life is, God is always there. If you let Him He will guide you to where you are supposed to be. You are valued by Him. He gave me a gift in the midst of a terrible storm and I am grateful. XOXO

 

 

 

Hey Peaches! I’m back.

The million dollar question is: “How do I find Mr. Right?”

There are a lot of theories on this and I think I have pretty much heard them all. I would say that a big percentage of couples met when they were young, got married and had kids and lived happily ever after……not necessarily. The misconception of happily ever after is that you will marry prince charming and both live in some sort of marital nirvana. This is not true. Happily ever after means accepting each others imperfect parts and realizing that forgiveness is a huge part of being happy with each other. You see men and women were created different, we look different, we act different and we think different and we even hear things different. For example: If I say “I have nothing to wear”, a woman hears “nothing new” and a man hears “nothing clean”. We have to learn to HEAR what the other person is saying in order to understand each other.

Couples that married young and stayed together have worked hard at keeping their relationship with each other a priority. Love, respect and forgiveness. None of us are perfect and we are going to make mistakes, we are going to hurt each others feelings because we are just different. But to recognize that and say “I’m sorry” whenever it is needed is key. I know what you are thinking “I’ve heard I’m sorry so many times and things don’t change”. That is manipulation. What I’m talking about is true respect and forgiveness – humility. It’s not easy and not everyone is going to be able to do it. That’s why the divorce rate is so high. If you are going to make your relationship work, you BOTH have to be committed to each other. So when I said that I was committed to each of my marriages as much as I could be that is what I meant. Some people say that if you love someone you will stay with them no matter what. Well I say it depends on what the “what” is. There are a lot of “whats” that break up a marriage and there are a lot of “whats” that kill your love for someone. Yes I said it. You can kill love. Can you love someone and not respect them? Sure you can but it doesn’t make a lasting relationship. Can you respect someone and not love them? Sure you can but it doesn’t make a lasting relationship. Sooner or later one of you is going to give up trying if you don’t have both love and respect for each other.

Infidelity: That’s a big “what”. Some people do forgive this and they go on to have a very happy relationship. For some people it is a deal breaker period. There is the matter of trust. Will I ever be able to trust them again? Some say “once a cheater, always a cheater”.  Well for the most part I do believe this to be true but there are those few that truly regret falling into that trap and destroying the other person’s trust. Some people say they could never trust them again. I say it is a matter of choice. You can choose to forgive and you can choose to trust. Now don’t get me wrong – that trust has to be earned back – it does not come so easily but it can be done. But both have to be committed to working through it. Not just one person forgiving and the other pretending it never happened. No, you have to BOTH work through it. That is respect for each other. Some people just simply choose not to put themselves in the position to be hurt again and I totally get it. It’s about choices and we all have them.

Abuse: That’s a big “what”. A LOT of women (and men) forgive over and over and over. For some, once is a deal breaker. There are many forms of abuse. Physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse and mental abuse. Abuse is not ok in any form.  Physical abuse – you hit me once – I’m gone. Emotional, mental and verbal abuse can happen over a period of time like the frog in warm water and you don’t really recognize it for what it is until you wake up one day and say “How did I get here and how do I get out?”.  If a person stays in an abusive relationship because they think it’s the right thing to do because they made a commitment, they are wrong. You are never required to be someone’s punching bag for any reason. This is not love or respect in any shape form or fashion. Statistics are not in your favour on this one, because more often than not it ends violently and tragically. If you are in an abusive relationship, get out, seek help, you are not alone.

Attracting the right person is dependant on a vast array of circumstances. I don’t care who you are or where you came from, you can attract the wrong person and you can attract the right person. You just have to be able to recognize the difference in the two and make good choices. Now I’m not saying that my past relationships were with terrible people (with the exception of the last one – a true narcissist). But what I am saying is that they were not the right people for me. And I was not the right person for them, otherwise we would still be together. There were a number of circumstances in each relationship and we made choices that didn’t work out.

So how do you find Mr. Right? One theory (and this is the most popular at the moment) is online dating sites. I know people who have found “the one” and are now happily married, but I have also heard all of the nightmares from both male and female that comes from online dating experiences. Another theory is church groups, if you join a church group surely you will find a good christian partner, not necessarily true. Then there is the meeting by chance, serendipity. This is by far the most romantic but unfortunately this usually only works out in the movies. I’m not saying it can’t but I am saying it usually does not.

After my third divorce I let a friend convince me to join a popular online dating group – it was not for me. After about a week and a half I had to shut that thing down! I wasn’t at all sure I really wanted another relationship but I wanted companionship. So I had a conversation with God. After three failed marriages I needed to make sure I did not make the same mistakes again. I did not want to go through another marriage/divorce. First I had to make sure I was ready. I had to make sure I was in a place of happiness just being me. I was enjoying life and I was not going to “look” for a man. I told God that if there was a man for me out there, He would have to bring him straight to my doorstep. This time I needed the right man, the man God prepared for me. Mr. Right. I made a list of qualities that I wanted in a man and it was a very detailed list, then I asked God to change it, add to it, I asked him to transform the list into His list for me. I had no idea what that looked like but I knew I trusted Him and He had my very best interest at heart. Afterall, He did create me and He knew my past and my present and my future. So I waited.

One day I got a call from a very old and dear friend. Someone that had been there for me on many occasions and whom I trusted completely. He said, “hello dear, I have someone I would like for you to meet”. My first thought was “oh jeez, I’m not sure about this”, but I listened as he talked and he began to describe this man. I actually started to giggle because everything he said about this man was everything on my list. They weren’t just general qualities, they were specific qualities down to the last detail. Half way through the phone call I knew that God had sent this man to my doorstep (so to speak) and that I had to meet him so I agreed.

We went on our first date on February 22, 2013 and the rest as they say is history. He is a true gentleman in every sense of the word and I am committed to him and our relationship. We are enjoying life and each other and the best is yet to come.

 

So I was going to title this blog post “Failed Relationships” but the more I thought about it the more I realized that they were also part of the pruning process so they took on a whole new meaning. To say failed is to imply there were no lessons learned and believe me, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about me and my ability to have a healthy relationship and I also learned a lot about the capabilities of others to maintain a healthy relationship. I don’t want to hurt anyones feelings because believe it or not I don’t hate my past – I appreciate it.

Love & Respect are key ingredients for a successful relationship. If you don’t have those mastered you are not going to make it. And as you all know from my last post that respect was not one that I had mastered. So I will take full responsibility for my contribution in past relationships. I have had three marriages and three divorces. I feel like a complete failure just speaking those words. I have to constantly remind myself that I was not alone. I was committed to each one of those relationships as much as I could possibly be, given what I had to work with. When you have two people who are not on the same page and can not communicate you have a recipe for disaster.

Marriage number one: I was 16 and pregnant. Boy I just jumped right in there on that one huh? First of all the fact that I was 16 and pregnant confirms that fact that I had zero respect for myself and I allowed myself to be disrespected. At 16 I was still trying to figure out who I was. Of course I didn’t realize that at the time. At 16 I thought I knew what love was and there was no way I was going to do anything other than marry the father of my child. I was presented with alternative situations but we were determined this was the way to go. I was 16 and he was 18 – we were ready to live on our own and be responsible adults. LOL – NOT. At 18 years old I found myself divorced with one child and one on the way.

Marriage number two: I was 22 and raising two children on my own. I had moved back home after my divorce but things became ugly again so I moved in with a friend. Then I met husband number two. He was also divorced and had two small children. We thought it would be grand to get married. Let me tell you if you don’t have any experience in blended families – it – is – hard. We were married 14 years and had one child together.

Marriage number three: I am still kicking myself over this one. I was completely vulnerable when this one came along and he took full advantage of it. I was 37 and really should have known better. The signs were there from the very beginning but I was so desperate for someone to love me that I ignored them. He also had two children that were living with him and I found myself in another blended family situation (Something I said I would never do again). We were married for 12 years.

Instead of rehashing the good, the bad and the ugly, I will talk about the lessons I learned in these relationships. I’ll be honest, by this time in my life I am tired. Tired of men, tired of fighting, tired of conflict, tired of being manipulated, tired of being DISRESPECTED!!! What can I do to break this pattern? What am I doing to attract this in my life? I am a southern girl born in Louisiana, a baby boomer, raised in the tail end of the June Clever era. We cater to our men. We are the submissive little wife. We raise our own children. We stay home while the husband works. We take care of the home. We obey our husbands. Wait, WHAT???? Yeah…… NO! Let me tell you I do believe what the Bible says about marriage and the whole submissive, obey your husband thing. But let’s be honest – these verses are taken out of context more often than not. Men use these passages as a right to control another human being and that is NOT what God meant by this. Annnnnd here is a big problem in my life. I want to have a marriage/relationship the way God designed it to be. But the only example I have is the one that, well you know that story. My mom did stay home and took care of the house and raised her children and took care of her man. BUT the man took full advantage of her kindness and vulnerability and controlled her in every way. So that’s where I found myself – being controlled. Unless you have ever been in a controlling relationship you can never fully grasp the hold it has on you. I like to use the analogy of the frog in warm water. If you throw a frog in boiling water he will jump out immediately but if you place him in warm water he feels all nice and cozy and you slowly turn up the temperature until the water is boiling and the frog will stay in the water until he dies. This is what it is like being controlled. It is so subtle at first and you are in love and you feel all nice and cozy so you ignore those little signs that tell you “hey that’s not right” and before you know it you are in hot water and you can’t get out.

Ok let’s examine my problem. I desperately want to be loved. I am looking for the knight in shining armour (I want to be saved). I want to be respected. How do I get these things?

This is the message! Hear me!

First – I have to love myself.

Second  – I have to save myself.

Third – I have to respect myself.

That is my problem. I didn’t love myself, I didn’t save myself and I didn’t respect myself. Do you remember in my past post where I said you can’t find your happiness in someone else? That is the key to unlock my chains. I have to learn to love and respect myself. How do I do that?

Lessons I learned from marriage(s):

If you don’t love yourself unconditionally you can never expect the other person to love you unconditionally. You have to use your voice. You have an opinion and it is valid and you need to be heard. There are things worth fighting for and there are things that are not worth the energy and consequences of words spoken in anger (pick your battles). There has to be compromise – it is not one way (his way). You have to communicate – don’t let them tell you your opinion doesn’t matter.  Even if you don’t agree, your opinion matters. Don’t allow yourself to be controlled. You are just as important as them and remember what I said earlier about God loving ALL of us. God does not love one person more than another He loves us ALL unconditionally. Therefore we ALL matter.

There is still the question of how do I learn to love and respect myself. There is no easy answer for this. When you have been treated like an object, a possession, it is hard to find value. I had to really get on my face and search my soul. I cried, I prayed, I fasted and I repeated. I had to put on a good poker face because as I was falling apart on the inside and I couldn’t let anyone know it. I had to find something I was good at – I had to find out what my purpose was. I feel like I am pretty artistic and I found that there was peace in this process. I did use my talents over the years off and on but never really appreciated that this was a gift from God. No matter where my career has taken me I still found myself gravitating back to my creative side. I craved it, I daydreamed about it, sometimes I was so full of ideas I thought I was going to bust. So I asked myself – is this my calling? I reminded myself that this was where my passion was, this is where my peace was. I was/am an artist – I am a decorator/designer. So I am trying to concentrate on my passion and I  am slowly finding myself and yes, I am loving myself. There is hope after all. I am getting there.

 

 

Hey Y’all! Hope you had a great week. I wanted to talk more about the subject of Respect. Every time I say the word I can’t help but sing it like Aretha Franklin. R-E-S-P-E-C-T  Find out what it means to me. LOL You are going to sing that in your head as you read this week’s blog. Sorry. hehehe

Growing up we were taught to respect our mother. We were taught to respect authority. We were taught to respect our elders. If we disrespected mom or dad we were punished. Now don’t get me wrong – I totally believe in that and those are the things I taught my children. I did not allow my children to disrespect me. I also didn’t allow them to disrespect each other.  I believe you can respect the position but necessarily the person.  I also believe in spanking. I did not abuse my children but I corrected them with love. Discipline has to to be delivered with love.  The Bible says: Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him (Proverbs 13:24). But it also says: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). And then there is the one that says: A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls (Proverbs 25:28). So this brings me to my next thought. What in the world happened to this man as a child to provoke so much anger in him? Why did he lack self-control? Why was he so broken that he felt the need to break us? Well I do know bits and pieces of the story and it is pretty ugly. I am not trying to justify his behaviour, just trying to understand it. Because if I can understand it maybe I can learn to forgive.

I recently saw the movie “The Shack”, I tried several times to read the book but never got very far so I watched the movie. If you haven’t seen it, you absolutely must. Without giving too much away, there is a scene where the boy, now grown, sees his father as a boy and is shown the abuse that he endured as a child. This absolutely gripped me so hard I was sobbing out loud. We as humans always ask WHY? We can’t grasp the concept of the fact that God allows bad things to happen to children. It’s called free will. It’s complicated and we will never understand fully. But this I do know, God loves us ALL! He loved that little boy who endured abuse from his father and he loved his son who endured abuse from him. So I had to accept that God loves my dad just as much as he loves me. That is hard. But on the other side of that, there are also consequences to our actions. We are responsible for what we do with our lives. Just because we were abused as children does not mean that we have to be abusers. We can break that chain.

Consequences. We all suffer consequences of our decisions in life. Consequences comes in so many different forms. I am not God and I don’t claim to know everything there is to know about God’s discipline but I do believe that it comes in the form of consequences. He is our Heavenly Father and He disciplines us with love. Sometimes it’s harsh and sometimes it’s so small that you may not even recognize it as such, but it is there.

So discipline without love creates lack of respect. While I did not disrespect him outright, I had zero respect for him as a father, as a husband, as a mentor, as a role model. I respected his position and I respected his authority but I did not respect him. As his illness progressed my compassion progressed. I did not want to see him suffer but a small part of me wondered if this was his consequences, his discipline. He had caused so much pain to others and now he was in constant pain. In the latter stages of his illness when he was in a rehab facility (that he would never return from), we had the opportunity to talk. He was in a place where I could control the situation so I wasn’t afraid to tell him how I felt about things. I wasn’t afraid that he would hurt me. He was vulnerable and I used that opportunity to say the things I needed to say. I went by there every day after work and we would sit out in the garden and talk. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty and sometimes we just cried together. But it was a healing process that we both needed. He asked for forgiveness and I gave it. I granted him the peace he needed because he admitted he was scared to meet God face to face because of all the things he had done in his lifetime. I assured him that God loved him and that if he had asked for forgiveness that it was given. Respect. I respected the process and he gained respect for me. How’s that for a lesson? Whew!

 

Hey Y’all! It’s me again. I’ve been thinking about the “Knight in shining armor” rescue and often wondered why it/he never came. So here’s the thing – after my mom divorced my father I saw him one time (that I can remember) when I was about 7, 8 ish – can’t remember exactly the age. I do remember he came over right before we moved to Texas and took lots of pictures of me and gave me a doll. But after that I never saw him again.

As a younger child I would lay in bed at night crying and longing for him to come take me from this place. I wanted him to hug me and tell me he loved me and that he would never let anyone hurt me again. It. Never. Happened. I have no idea if he knew anything about me after we left. I have no idea if he talked to family members to check on me or if he ever even called my mom to check on me. I don’t know why visitation wasn’t set up, I don’t know why he never tried to see me for holidays or birthdays. He just ceased to exist in my world.

What I do know is that the man I called dad was an extremely jealous, possessive and controlling man. So what part did he play in this situation? Did he threaten him not to see me? Was he so jealous that he didn’t want him around my mom? Did he not want him to know what he was doing to his child? These are legitimate questions. BUT, as I stated before – we didn’t talk about these things. In fact we didn’t talk about anything. The generation of silence and secrets strikes again.

I have since found out some things about my biological father. He re-married and had two more children that I got to meet as an adult. Unfortunately I did not get to see him because he passed away when I was 18. Still lots of unanswered questions.

They say that girls marry their father so as I began to date, the kind of guys I was attracted to varied. I was looking for my saviour so I was attracted to the nice guys and although they treated me well they did not make the cut.  The guys who took advantage of me and treated me not so good were the ones I gravitated towards. WHY IS THAT??? I don’t/didn’t want to be treated as though I am not important. I want to be treated like I am the only girl in the world and I want to be loved and respected. Most of all RESPECTED. But because I did not get that at home I guess I thought I didn’t deserve it. What does that word even mean? The only thing we were taught to respect were the rules. Rules didn’t come with love and understanding they were just demanded. So how do you demand respect? You don’t! Respect is earned. Period. I had to learn to respect myself before I could ever expect anyone else to. And boy, that took a long, long time. Well into my adulthood I learned the lesson of respecting myself. As I became a parent I tried to teach my children the value and definition of respect. I hope I did that.